Wireshark network analyzer: The open source network monitoring tool

by Laura Chappell

Wireshark, an open source network monitoring tool, can help networking pros in a variety of ways. This chapter excerpt from Wireshark expert Laura Chappell includes a checklist of what Wireshark can do for your network, as well as a free chapter download from her book.

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range from bandwidth optimization and application analysis to troubleshooting and network security. Wireshark is an open source network monitoring tool, so networking pros can tailor the tool to their exact needs. And those needs can range from basic traffic transmission testing to intrusion prevention, analysis of bandwidth usage, application security testing and identification of faulty configurations.

In "The World of Network Analysis," chapter 1 of Wireshark Network Analysis, Chappell explains how to launch an analysis session and understand traffic flows and runs over a list of technologies that affect packet flow, offering up some Wireshark network analyzer case studies. In the excerpt below, Chappell offers a checklist of must-do analysis tasks, all of which can be completed with the Wireshark network analyzer as an open source monitoring tool. You can also read all of the "The World of Network Analysis."

Review a checklist of analysis tasks

Analysis tasks can be considered preventive or reactive. Preventive methods include base-lining network communications to learn the current status of the network and application performance. Preventive analysis can also be used to spot network problems before they are felt by the network users. For example, identifying the cause of packet loss before it becomes excessive and affects network communications helps avoid problems before they are even noticed.

Reactive analysis techniques are employed after a complaint about network performance has been reported or when network problems are suspected. Sadly, reactive analysis is more common.

The following are some of the analysis tasks that can be performed using Wireshark:

Find the top talkers on the network.

Identify the protocols and applications in use.

Determine the average packets per second rate and bytes per second rate of an application or all network traffic on a link.

List all hosts communicating.

Learn the packet lengths used by a data transfer application.

Recognize the most common connection problems.

Spot delays between client requests due to slow processing.

Locate misconfigured hosts.

Detect network or host congestion that is slowing down file transfers.

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